1991: Anthony Field, birth of The Wiggles

ANTHONY Field, 50, is the only original member left in The Wiggles after Jeff Fatt (purple), Greg Page (yellow) and Murray Cook (red) retired.

Anthony Field

A FEW months ago The Wiggles were performing in Newcastle when they suffered a minor mishap on stage. The audience didn't notice; the group played on. But as soon as the show was over, Anthony Field, the Blue Wiggle, walked off stage and out the door.

"No one knew where I had gone," he recalls. "I just got on my bike and rode around Newcastle until I felt better. It was something small that went wrong and anyone else would have said, 'So what?' but I thought my life had just ended. A couple of years ago it would have been worse; I used to finish a show and just go behind a curtain and lie on the ground."

Field, 50, is the only original member left in The Wiggles after Jeff Fatt (the purple Wiggle), Greg Page (yellow) and Murray Cook (red) retired at the end of last year. As a graduate in early childhood education who used to critique Sesame Street and Play School for his own entertainment, Field formed the group 22 years ago in what he expected to be a bit of fun on the side. "I didn't even think it would last a year," he admits now. "It wasn't meant to be a career."

At first The Wiggles trod the same difficult path as many other children's entertainers; doing the rounds of birthday parties, busking on Sydney's Circular Quay, selling cassettes of their music out of suitcases. But the boys in the blue, purple, yellow and red skivvies soon became an enormous hit. The Wiggles have been going so long now that some of their original fans are returning with their own children.

They have consistently been among the biggest earners in the music business, selling seven million albums and 23 million videos/DVDs, and are a fixture on the BRW rich list. A series of internal problems saw their earnings drop from $45 million in 2009 to $17 million last year; but on the original line-up's farewell tour last year they played 243 shows in eight countries.

This year, after travelling Australia to introduce the new line-up, including the first female Wiggle, Emma Watkins, they have toured the US and are about to tour NZ and Australia again.

But behind the sheen of success Field has been dogged by depression so black that it has come close to destroying him. "I've suffered from it for a long time, since just after I left school," he says. "In my 20s I was dangerously depressed - so much so that my dad went out and got me professional help and that really was a life saver. I thought I was OK, but then I went out on the road. I hid it on stage - the audience never suspected anything - but when the show ended I'd come off stage and just sit in my hotel room. I was lonely and full of self-loathing."

Eight years ago, Field was prescribed anti-depressants, began exercising, lost 16kg, and started to see a naturopath. When The Weekend Australian Magazine spoke to him he had been off medication for a month - the longest stretch without antidepressants in the past eight years.

The group's brutal tour timetable has impacted on Field's life in other ways, putting his decade-long marriage to Michaela Patisteas under strain and forcing him to miss the milestones of his children Lucia, Marie and Antonio. "I miss birthdays all the time," he says.

"We Skype every day and every night when I'm on tour but it's very hard. They're at an age now when they don't like me going away; they'll say, 'Daddy, please don't go'. It's awful. When it's time to go they give me little things to take in my bag, drawings and cards."

And what does he do for them? "Oh," he says, "I just cry."

The past couple of years have been difficult for the group, particularly last year when they faced a backlash after the dumping of Yellow Wiggle Sam Moran to make way for the return of Page, who'd left five years earlier due to ill health. It was reported that Moran had been ostracised during his years with the group; Field was said to have considered him a hired hand and to have refused to speak to him on tour.

Field strongly denies the claims but is clearly deeply affected by them. "It was a terrible time when nothing made sense," he says. "It hurts when you see yourself being described as a mean-spirited person - I didn't recognise the person I was portrayed as but you can't defend yourself against 'unnamed sources'. Sam had a great time with us, he was paid generously and travelled the world. If he wasn't having a great time he should have told us."

Now Fatt, Page and Cook have retired, and Field says he will miss them, but he has not been tempted to go too.

"I didn't even think about it, not for a second. I love it too much and we have a great new team now."

We return to the idea of the group's original fans coming back with their own children. "God yes, it's scary," Field says. "It makes me feel old. But I can't see me ever leaving. They'll have to take me out in a box."

ALSO IN 1991

* Paul Keating becomes PM

* Manning Clark, author of A History of Australia, dies

* Heart transplant surgeon Victor Chang murdered

* David Malouf wins Miles Franklin Award for The Great World

* Ian Frazer, Jian Zhou start developing HPV vaccine

* Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody issues final report

* John Farnham wins best male artist at the ARIAs